“Love and Attachment #2”

If I had to identify a personal theme for the past year, it would be LOVE. I’m now in my third year of a weekly course in tantra and yoga, and in my second year of an open relationship. These two things combined have been teaching me a lot about the differences between love and attachment. My last post began the process of sharing what I’ve discovered – this second part will continue that process.

Click here for ‘Love and Attachment – Part 1

Love and Attachment

Insights & inspiration:

6. Non-attachment is emotional freedom

Mindfulness teacher, Sandra Pawula, explains in her blog, ‘The True Meaning of Non-Attachment and How it Sets You Free’, that while it’s only human to feel things, we can learn to not get entangled in our emotions through techniques such as mindfulness and meditation. These techniques increase our awareness, and with it our emotional freedom. We can more easily accept what is – whether that be a thought, a feeling, a situation or an experience – without being so affected by it.

“It is because of our attachment to things that we suffer. By letting go we find that we have not lost anything except our attachment.”

SOGYAL RINPOCHE, Tibetan Buddhist and Author of ‘The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying’.

Applied to relationships, non-attachment invites us to cultivate more emotional independence (and, therefore, resilience) within ourselves, so that our state of mind is not continually dictated and determined by what our loved ones are being or not being, doing or not doing.

7. Non-attachment is not indifference

The Oxford dictionary defines ‘indifference’ as: ‘Lack of interest, concern or sympathy’. Just to be clear, non-attachment is not about a lack of feeling, interest or affection towards others. It is about fully loving and accepting someone, while also letting go a little. This doesn’t mean neglecting them, disconnecting from them or not caring. It means letting go of our emotional entanglement in their actions and behaviours. It means letting go of our need for them to be anything more or different. It means giving people a little more freedom to be who they are, without compromising who we are. Ultimately, it means taking responsibility for our own happiness.

“Sadly, non-attachment or detachment as proposed in Buddhism is radically misunderstood by many.  Non-attachment actually brings about the most profound sense of care, compassion, and freedom you could ever imagine.”

SANDRA PAWULA, Mindfulness Teacher.

Note: Non-attachment can also be practised in our relationships with friends and family, although it’s likely to be far more challenging and complicated between parents and children, for example, for obvious reasons.

8. Love can be developed through practice

Like a muscle that grows weak through lack of use, our capacity to love can also weaken for this same reason. Fortunately, love is something that can be ‘exercised’ and strengthened in us – we can learn to give and feel more love by consciously bringing it more into our daily interactions. If you think this sounds ‘easier said than done’, then it’s worth remembering that ‘love begets love’. It’s hard not to respond warmly to those who are genuinely open and loving.

Tantra teacher, Advaita Stoian, talks about the importance of being active, not passive, in our love – consciously opening and sharing our love with others. He explains that being ‘active’ or even ‘proactive’ means not waiting for others to love us but instead being ‘the first to love’.

Gary Chapman, author of ‘The Five Love Languages’, also talks about love as a conscious choice we must keep making, especially when the honeymoon period has passed and during those difficult times when it doesn’t feel so easy to love.

“We can recognise the in-love experience for what it was – a temporary emotional high – and now pursue ‘real love’ with our spouse. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognises the need for personal growth.”

GARY CHAPMAN, Marriage Guidance Counsellor & Author.

We can also expand our capacity to love through spiritual practice. There are yoga postures and breathing techniques that can help to release the physical tensions and emotional blocks in the area of the heart. I’ve been experiencing this in my own practice. My daily yoga and meditation have made me a happier and more loving person. I’m feeling and experiencing more love in my life – both with others and within myself.

9. Prioritising the present moment over past or future

There are moments in life and moments in relationships where we do want or need to be with things that have passed or things that are to come. But there are other times when being in the past or the future is not so helpful: over-indulging, obsessing, re-living, over-thinking, over-analysing, over-planning or worrying, regretting, speculating or fantasising …. these things tend to keep us anchored in attachment, rather than love. This is because the above are all mental activities that take us out of the present moment. I’ve been guilty of most of the above at various points in my life and I can safely say I have never, ever ‘over-thought’ or ‘over-analysed’ myself into love.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

RUMI, 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic.

10. Being open and inclusive rather than fixed and exclusive, with our love.

Teachers at Tara Yoga Centre often talk about this idea of ‘non-preferential expansion’. Tantra teacher, Kate Wallwork, explains that a truly open heart is naturally inclusive rather than exclusive in its loving.

“An open heart is non-preferential. We can’t be open to one and closed to another in the same moment. When the heart opens, it opens spherically.”

KATE WALLWORK, Tantra Teacher.

This is not intended as an argument against monogamy or for polyamory. This expansion and openness can be applied to all our relationships and interactions. It simply invites us to be less conditional and more generous with our love, rather than narrowly restricting it to our most significant others.

I had a wonderful experience of this on my summer retreat, where I began part one of this blog. The whole retreat was generating a lot of love in me, but I was still finding that certain individuals were ‘inspiring’ that in me more than others. This is normal, of course – we don’t usually find every person we meet equally likeable or attractive! But I wanted to challenge an old pattern of over-attaching to someone I like. So rather than fixating on the object of my affection, I chose to allow the love I was feeling to be shared with everyone I encountered – in whatever way felt spontaneously appropriate. This felt dramatically different to my usual experience and allowed the love in me to expand and grow even stronger.

In closing:

I hope this 2-part exploration of the differences between love and attachment has been thought-provoking for you. I would like to leave you with an affirmation I’ve been using for the past year – that has been helping me to stay centred in LOVE.

My heart is open, my heart is strong, my heart is pure love.

I would like to dedicate this post to S and T who have inspired so much love and learning in me this past year, each in their own unique ways.

If you enjoyed this post – please give it some gold stars above and post a comment below. Thank you!

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The True Meaning of Non-Attachment and How it Sets You Free

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